I spent a year or so as a member of the WS-I Basic Security
Profile Working Group. A Profile, in WS-I terms, is a restriction of a set of
standards. If vendors conform to the Profile, there is a much greater chance of
achieving interoperability.
The UDDI Technical Notes are not a restriction of the UDDI
Standard to which vendors are encouraged to conform. The mostly seem to be aimed
at users.
So changing the name of Technical Notes to Profiles would
cause a lot of confusion. Sounds to me like the ebXML community have the wrong
name.
Dave Prout
BT
I for one do have an issue with this. We have a long
history of the term along with an agreed to process - see [1] - this in fact
predates OASIS. I see no reason to change this at this time as this would only
cause confusion within the user community.
Furthermore, I don't see how we could/would ever consider
something (effectively normative) as the WSDL-UDDI v2 mapping a "profile"; same
goes for any of the TNs we've issued. Our TNs are very specific. They don't
offer many degrees of freedom or pick from alternatives (as would a profile) -
they are simply "a non-normative document accompanying the UDDI Specification that
provides guidance on how to use UDDI registries. While Technical Notes represent
the TC’s view on some UDDI-related topic, they may be prospective in nature and
need not document existing practice."
We should in fact consider elevating the status of some of
our TNs to OASIS specs.
I'm afraid I don't see Paul's issue here but am more than
happy to discuss during the call tomorrow.
Luc
I have no problem with adopting the "profile" terminology, and I like the
suggestions you've made, but I wonder if this will introduce conflict with those
familiar with the WS-I Basic Profile? Anyone have an idea about this?
Tony Rogers
-----Original Message----- From: Paul Denning
[mailto:pauld@mitre.org] Sent: Sat 24-Sep-05 3:38 To:
uddi-spec@lists.oasis-open.org Cc: Subject: [uddi-spec]
TN/BP or Profile
UDDI has used the terms "Technical Note (TN)" and "Best
Practice (BP)" to talk about ways of using UDDI in a consistent
manner.
The OASIS ebXML Registry TC has a similar concept, but they
call them "Profiles".
This difference in terminology for the same
basic concept can be confusing.
I get the feeling that some people
consider an ebReg "profile" somehow more legitimate or formal than a UDDI
TN/BP.
I think they are equal.
Using different terminology seems
to be used as a way to differentiate ebREg from UDDI and make ebReg look
more suitable for enterprise deployments. There are other differences
besides Profile vs TN/BP, but when ebReg says that they have profiles for
this or that, it somehow sounds like UDDI does not have something
equivalent or as formal. Some people looking to compare and
contrast UDDI and ebReg may ask "does UDDI have an XYZ profile like
ebReg?" The answer may be "yes, but we call it an XYZ
TN".
Where am I going with this?
I propose that the UDDI Spec TC
adopt the term "profile" as a replacement for TN and BP.
The boiler
plate for a UDDI Profile could say something like "UDDI profiles provide
technical notes and best practice for using UDDI."
Another motivation
for this proposal is that the term "profile" is used quite a bit by the US
DoD, who is my customer/sponsor. People tune-in when the word
"profile" is used more so than TN/BP.
Historically, a standards profile
has referred to additional constraints associated with implementation of a
standard. Standards that have been developed by committees sometimes
include options that are included as a way of reaching consensus within the
committee. A profile of such as standard may be developed by a
vertical industry or some other organization. For example, WS-I has a
Basic Profile that specifies constraints on the use of SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI
with the goal of better interoperability. Profiles may provide a way
of defining a standard "subset" of a broader standard.
ebReg and the
proposed UDDI profiles would be a little different in that these specs
provide some basic building blocks. The idea of a profile in this
context is not to identify fewer building blocks (standard subsets), but it
is to document one arrangement of the building blocks to solve a particular
problem in a consistent way. If people publish to a registry in a
consistent manner, then queries to search for those things can be
simpler. Nonetheless, the term "profile" is being used in a more or
less consistent way when compared to the historical use of the standards
"profile".
Some other advantages of both ebReg and UDDI using the term
"profile" include serendipitous discovery. People searching Google
(for example) for "profile" (and some other terms) may get a few hits
for UDDI documents mixed in with ebXML profiles if "profile" is
adopted as a replacement for TN/BP. That person may have known about
ebReg, but may have not known about UDDI. Without UDDI using the
term "profile", these UDDI hits may not have shown up in the
search results, and that person would not have known about UDDI.
Likewise, someone who knows about UDDI. but not ebXML may search for
"profile" and may learn about ebXML.
I don't think ebReg TC is going
to change to using TN/BP terminology.
OASIS may want to consider
adopting a general policy to use the term "profile" when talking about
subsets or ways of using (and extending) OASIS
standards.
Comments?
Paul
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